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ME: Hallway?
CRESS: Outside the firm’s office, dingbat.
Crapola. Just what I need.
ME: Be right out.
When I let her in, Cress makes a beeline for my office. She trips on a wrinkle in the carpet. “A little dark, don’t you think?”
“We’re not open.” Irritation makes me snappish.
She follows the rectangle of light shining from my open door and safely makes it to my guest chair, after throwing her coat onto the tree in the corner.
“Do you want coffee?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
I turn and practically run down the hall to the kitchenette. We have two machines, so I place the cups, load the capsules, and press the start buttons. Since she didn’t follow me, I have a little breathing space before whatever inquisition she has planned.
Finally, the coffees appropriately doctored with cream and sugar, I carefully transport them back. As I hand one to her, I ask, “What are you doing here?”
“Breakfast.” She takes a box marked Toni’s Patisserie out of her oversized bag. Inside nestle a croissant and an eclair. Just to wind her up, I reach for the eclair while she excavates for napkins.
When she sees my hand hovering, she snaps, irritated, “Hey, that’s mine. Take the croissant.”
“Fine.” My grumble is pretend. She always gets the eclairs. All that chocolate glaze and custard. Not for breakfast.
I put the pastry down next to my cup and tap the laptop case. “Just getting started on today’s reading. Greenberg will be here at ten for the next briefing.”
“Do clients usually come in so often?”
“No, but our congressman is in a hurry. The flames are fanned every day and his numbers are tanking. He insists it’s a frame-up, but I’m finding some suspicious emails from an anonymous account that just happens to be on his laptop.”
Cress takes a bite of her eclair, face suffusing with color, not from embarrassment but from pleasure. The moan that follows the track of the pastry is probably what Max hears from her in bed.
Carefully, I bite into my buttery croissant, quickly brushing pastry flakes off my skirt into the garbage container I pulled in front of me for this purpose.
“What are you doing this morning?”
“I plan to pack and write at home. This was my constitutional. Come by for a drink later. Maybe stay for dinner.”
“I might need that. Between Hayden’s antics and Greenberg’s demands, the day will be pretty taxing.”
“Think positively,” says my friend, the ultimate pessimist.
I look at my watch. “I’ll walk you out. JL has someone coming to see me in about ten minutes.”
As we walk out of the Aon Center, the building we call our home away from home, my right heel gets caught in the space between paving slabs in the building courtyard facing Randolph Street. When I yank it out, it snaps off. Fuck me.
Cress, who has already gotten ahead of me, looks back. “Micki?” Her eyes widen as she sees the disaster.
“Don’t worry.” I wave her off. “I have another pair in the office.”
She bites her lip. I make pushing motions with my hands and eventually she runs to catch the bus she needs as it appears in the distance.
* * *
JL
